Native PICO-8 and Splore

Native PICO-8 lets you browse Splore and play PICO-8 carts on your MLP1. PICO-8 for Leaf is an optional integration. You supply the paid runtime from Joseph White / Lexaloffle. FAKE-08 remains available and stays your default until you choose native PICO-8.

Set up PICO-8

Purchase PICO-8 from Lexaloffle and download the Raspberry Pi ZIP.
Press MENU, open Actions > Pak Rat, choose PICO-8 for Leaf, and install it. It lives on your primary card as Apps/mlp1/PICO8.pak/.
Extract pico8_64 and pico8.dat from the ZIP’s pico-8 folder. Copy both files from the same download to BIOS/PICO8/ on your primary card:

BIOS/
  PICO8/
    pico8_64
    pico8.dat

Keep the names and capitalization shown above. Don’t copy the enclosing pico-8 folder into BIOS/PICO8/, and don’t rename pico8_64 to pico8. These are your purchased runtime files, not console BIOS dumps. The Windows, macOS, and desktop Linux downloads won’t work here. Raspberry Pi version 0.2.7 is the version tested so far.

Browse Splore

Open Apps > PICO-8 for Leaf. Connect to Wi-Fi to refresh BBS lists and download games. Select a game and press an action button to open it.

Splore’s local file browser starts at your primary card’s Roms/PICO8/. Its / means that library root. It doesn’t expose the whole SD card. Use Leaf’s game library to launch carts from your secondary card.

Keep Splore favorites in Leaf

Select a game in Splore, press START, and choose Favourite. When you exit Splore, Leaf copies your downloaded favorites into your PICO-8 game library. Allow the library scan to finish after returning to Leaf.

Your copies live in primary Roms/PICO8/Splore/ and initially use native PICO-8, sharing your existing native progress. You can change their Core choice later. Splore favorites and Leaf favorites stay separate.

If Splore only supplies an ID as a title, Leaf makes it readable, for example pilatro_35 becomes Pilatro 35. Numbers stay because they may belong to the title. You can set your own display name in Leaf; imports keep that choice.

Removing a Splore favorite keeps your library copy. Whenever you exit Splore, Leaf also updates previously imported games if Splore has downloaded newer versions. Their library entries, playtime, and core choices stay in place. Leaf doesn’t overwrite a cart you’ve edited yourself. Edited carts and filename conflicts are skipped without showing an import failure.

A favorite must finish downloading before it can be imported. Missing or incomplete downloads are retried after your next Splore session. If you delete an imported game while it remains a Splore favorite, Leaf imports it again. Multi-cart games may still need an internet connection to download extra carts.

Choose native playback for local carts

Put .p8 or cartridge .p8.png files in Roms/PICO8/ on either card. Extract archives first. An ordinary PNG picture isn’t a PICO-8 cartridge.

Press X on a game or on the PICO-8 system, choose Core, then choose PICO-8 (native). A game choice overrides the system choice. Choose FAKE-08 to switch back, or use Reset Game Overrides to remove a custom choice and inherit the default.

If the native runtime is missing or can’t start, Leaf uses its normal FAKE-08 launch path for local carts. Your saved core preference stays in place. Exiting or crashing during a native session returns you to Leaf; it doesn’t start a second emulator.

Controls and returning to Leaf

Press MENU to show Return to Leaf?, then press MENU again within four seconds to quit PICO-8 normally. If you want to keep playing, let the prompt disappear. This works in a game and in Splore, even when no cart is selected. If PICO-8 stays frozen, wait at least two seconds and repeat the MENU confirmation to force it to close. Unsaved progress may be lost.

Use the D-pad and action buttons to navigate and play. Press START for PICO-8’s native menu:

A directly launched cart offers Shutdown.
A Splore cart offers Exit to Splore and Options > Shutdown PICO-8.
In the Splore browser, select a cart and use START > Options > Shutdown PICO-8 to return to Leaf.

Volume controls work normally. RetroArch’s shaders, achievements, rewind, savestates, and Leaf’s RetroArch menu don’t apply to native PICO-8.

Your progress and files

Both entry points use one native home on the primary card: .userdata/mlp1/pico8/. It contains your configuration, native cartridge progress, controller mappings, and Splore cache. Captures go to primary Recordings/PICO8/. Carts that explicitly write another cart file write in their selected ROM library.

Native progress is separate from FAKE-08 progress and savestates. Switching emulators doesn’t migrate either format. Keep multi-cart games together in their original folder structure. A game may need further downloads even if its first cart is already cached.

Your runtime and native home sit outside the pak and Leaf’s system files. Updating or removing the integration leaves them in place. Paths are resolved again on each launch, including when the cards exchange mount points at boot.

For an intentional reset, stop PICO-8 and back up the file you want to reset before removing it from the native home. PICO-8 recreates config.txt and sdl_controllers.txt when they’re absent. Your existing edits aren’t replaced on every launch.

PICO-8 won’t open

An upgrade message means your launcher doesn’t provide native PICO-8 support. Update Leaf before trying the integration again.

A setup message means you should check that both files are directly inside primary BIOS/PICO8/, came from the same Raspberry Pi download, and were fully extracted. Don’t move the runtime to your secondary card when a cart lives there; the runtime and native home always belong to the primary card.

Splore can’t download games

Check Wi-Fi and the device’s date and time, then retry. New BBS games need an internet connection. If the game list loads but a game doesn’t, capture the error and check .userdata/mlp1/logs/umrk-leaf-session.log on the primary card. Keep the integration’s bin/wget helper with the pak; it supplies the HTTPS downloads that the stock firmware’s wget can’t handle.